Daily News Digest – November 6, 2018

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1. Bush remembered with praise, humor, tears.

The nation bid goodbye to George H.W. Bush with high praise, cannon salutes and gentle humor, celebrating the life of the Texan who embraced a lifetime of service in Washington and was the last president to fight for the U.S. in wartime.

The current and three former presidents looked on at Washington National Cathedral as a fourth — George W. Bush — eulogized his dad as “the brightest of a thousand points of light.”

2. Report: Alabama prisons are nation’s most ‘deadliest.’

A new report from the Equal Justice Initiative claims Alabama’s prisons are the “deadliest” in the nation with the recent spike in homicides.

Based on the national average, that’s easily the case.

The recent stabbing of 29-year-old Vaquerro Kinjuan Armstrong at Holman marked the eighth homicide within the prison system since January.

Since the beginning of Fiscal Year 2017, Alabama prisons have seen 19 murders. That puts Alabama’s average prison homicide rate at as much as six times the national average, according to EJI’s tabulation.

The Department of Corrections isn’t surprised by these numbers. They report them every month.

And, for the record, DOC says the uptick in violence directly corresponds with the “level of prison violence and the shortage of correctional staff in an overpopulated prison system with limited resources for rehabilitating offenders.”

I spoke with State Sen. Cam Ward, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee and has been an advocate for prison reform for some time.

He agreed about prison overcrowding and under-staffing, but added two really interesting factors into the mix: the nature of the prison population and the outdated facilities.

Ward said he thinks addressing the myriad prison problems will be a priority for some in the upcoming legislative session, but it won’t be easy.

“This is not going to be for free. We’re going to have to pay for it. If we want public safety, then we’re going to pay for it.”

5. Can Congress re-up LCWF in lame duck?

Many questions remain about what Congress can accomplish when the lame duck session resumes a somewhat normal schedule next week.

Of course, the big-ticket items are appropriations (how much wall funding they’ll fight over) and confirmations (how many federal judges the Senate can confirm over the objections of Sen. Jeff Flake and others).

But, one item many conservationists and outdoors enthusiasts are hoping gets attention is the reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

The Fund’s six-year authorization expired in September.

For Alabama, the LWCF coalition provided about $153 million for sites such as the Bon Secour and Cahaba National Wildlife Refuges, Little River Canyon National Preserve, and Talladega, Tuskegee and Bankhead National Forests.

Alabama’s federal lawmakers have supported the Fund in the past, and Reps. Bradley Byrne and Terri Sewell have written letters supporting its reauthorization soon.

News Briefs.

China on board

China’s government says it will promptly carry out a tariff cease-fire with Washington and is confident they can reach a trade agreement.

Talks during the 90-day period during which President Donald Trump has agreed to suspend U.S. tariff hikes will start by focusing on farm goods, energy and automobiles, said a Ministry of Commerce spokesman, Gao Feng.

Asked to confirm whether Beijing promised to buy American goods immediately, Gao said China will “immediately implement the consensus reached by the two sides on farm products, cars and energy.”

President Trump agreed Saturday to postpone U.S. tariff hikes in a fight over Beijing’s technology policy by 90 days while the two sides negotiate.

The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments about an exception to the Constitution’s ban on being tried for the same offense.

The justices are taking up an appeal Thursday from federal prison inmate Terance Gamble. He was prosecuted separately by Alabama and the federal government for having a gun after an earlier robbery conviction.

The high court is considering whether to overturn a court-created exception to the Constitution’s double-jeopardy bar that allows state and federal prosecutions for the same crime.

The outcome could have a spillover effect on the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

If President Donald Trump were to pardon someone implicated in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, the court’s ruling could be relevant if a state (New York) wanted to pursue its own charges against that person.

One of the nation’s largest for-profit college chains announced Wednesday that it was abruptly closing in dozens of locations nationwide, after its accrediting agency suspended approval.

Birmingham-based Education Corp. of America said it was closing schools operating as Virginia College, Brightwood College, Brightwood Career Institute, Ecotech Institute and Golf Academy of America in more than 70 locations in 21 states.

The company said in October that it had more than 20,000 students, although more recent documents indicate the number may be closer to 15,000.

Spokeswoman Diane Worthington said that at most locations, Friday would be the last day of classes, and students would get academic credit for this term.